End of an era for famous Lwang’ni Beach 'hotels'

Margret Achieng, a trader at Lwang'ni beach in Kisumu sits at what used to be her hotel after bulldozers came calling at midnight, flattening their business premises over expansion of the port. [Denish Ochieng/ Standard]

Bulldozers rolled into Kisumu’s second largest lakeside destination — Lwang’ni Beach — on Tuesday night, bringing down popular fish eateries that had attracted visitors for decades.

Watchmen guarding a long line of lakeside food kiosks famous for fresh tilapia ran for their dear lives as the bulldozers reduced the aging structures — some put up in the early 1980s — to a heap of rubble. By 8am yesterday, Lwang’ni, which means house flies, was dead and buried with traders desperately trying to salvage whatever remained of their premises.

Leisure tourism

The makeshift structures offered a wide variety of fresh fish that attracted local and international tourists on the Western Kenya tourism circuit.

They also attracted another breed of visitors that gave the beach its name: flies.  The beach was named Lwang’ni after the flies that swarmed the premises, attracted by the heavy smell of fish.

Still, the flies did not discourage hundreds of visitors who swarmed the beach every day for a meal of fresh fish and boat rides out in the lake. For the past four decades Lwang’ni, with its fish and scenic view of the lake, had become the face of leisure tourism in Kisumu.

Tuesday night’s demolitions brought all these to an abrupt end, sending hundreds of traders who had depended on the beach since the 1980s back to the drawing board, and for some, back home.

“There is nothing more left for me to do in town, I have to go back home,” said Joseph Osewe, 63, who ran one of the oldest eateries at the beach.

His ‘Furaha Hotel,’ was among the business premises brought down on Tuesday night. Now Osewe, who ventured into the eatery business at the beach in 1981 after losing his job at Kisumu Cotton Mills, will be heading back home in Masumbi village in Alego, Siaya County.

He was among the first local investors who saw an opportunity at the beach front that was then a stretch of shrubs and bush. Back then, anyone who wanted a space for business at the lakeside simply approached Kisumu Municipal Council and paid an annual licence fee of Sh150.

According to Osewe, ownership of the prime land started becoming blurred in 1990s.

“We were asked to start paying a daily rate of Sh10, which we obliged, life went on smoothly until early 2000 when Kenya Railways Corporation came in and threatened to evict us,” he said.

The traders were allowed to stay on after agreeing to pay a monthly rent of Sh500. Last year, talk of revamping the collapsed Kisumu Port came up and the Kenya Railways Corporation began to demand back the land again.

Last week, the traders received an eviction notice, ordering them to move out before August 12 to give way for the revamping of the port.

But before the notice lapsed, Osewe said the traders were summoned to governor Anyang’ Nyong’o’s office on Tuesday and given five hours to leave.

“By 11pm the demolition began, and the result is what you can see here,” he said.

Setting sun

Adjacent to his eatery stood Joyce Okello’s ‘Tazama Hotel’ — a single-storey structure with a balcony that for years offered guests a clear view of the sun setting on the lake.

Ms Okello, famously known as Mama Linda, set up ‘Furaha Hotel’ in 1996 after resigning from her job at the National Cereals and Produce Board. It went up in smoke on Tuesday night.

“I spent a fortune putting up this structure, and I do not want to remember its story,” she said.

Yukabeth Mitowo, the chair of the beach traders said the demolition was a big blow to the lakeside community.

“The beach had more than 30 eateries employing up to 25 people each, it also employed many suppliers, leisure boat operators, photographers, taxi and boda boda operators and car wash operators,” she said.

For thousands of Kenyans who knew the beach front for its fish and a tinge of romance, the demolition triggered feelings of nostalgia.

“Ooh, dear Lwang’ni, go thee well. It’s here that I met my first girlfriend and future wife as we ate a giant tilapia which we never finished,” tweeted one Joseph Bill.